page_title: 56th Fighter Wing
section_title: Initial activation
hierarchical_section_title: 56th Fighter Wing / History / Initial activation
caption_attribution_description: AEMCO photo at Oakland, CA.
context_page_description: The 56th Fighter Wing is a fighter wing in the United States Air Force. It is the Air Force's only active-duty F-16 training wing and one of two F-35 training wings. The 56th graduates more than 400 General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots and 300 air control professionals annually. The wing is also responsible for three additional squadrons under the 54th Fighter Group located at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, where F-16 training is moving as the wing transitions to become the sole pilot training center for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.
  Additionally, the 56th Fighter Wing oversees the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field and the Barry M. Goldwater Range, a military training range spanning more than 1.7 million acres of Sonoran Desert.
context_section_description: The 56th Fighter Wing was activated 15 August 1947 at Selfridge Field, Michigan as part of the United States Air Force's experimental wing base reorganization, in which combat groups and all supporting units on a base were assigned to a single wing.  The 56th Fighter Group, flying Lockheed P-80 Shooting Stars, became its operational component. The wing base organization was made permanent in 1948.
  In July and August 1948, the wing pioneered the first west-to-east jet fighter transatlantic crossing along the northern air route from the United States to Europe, flying 16 of its F-80's from Selfridge to Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, Germany, by way of Maine Labrador, Greenland, Iceland and Scotland.
caption: Lockheed F-80
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